<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>After the Storm by peaches2217</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23849974">After the Storm</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/peaches2217/pseuds/peaches2217'>peaches2217</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harvest Moon, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, 牧場物語つながる新天地 | Story of Seasons</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>I'll just adopt these boys like I adopted OliLen, M/M, Morning After, Sexual Tension, This is my ship now, Welp! I'm no stranger to shipping unpopular ships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:54:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,163</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23849974</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/peaches2217/pseuds/peaches2217</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The room is dark and the bed isn’t his own. The scent of late-summer petrichor permeates the air, and somewhere beneath it, the scent of salt and close bodies.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rick/Pete | Jack</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>After the Storm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hear me out: Mineral Town is basically mid-20th Century Small Town Euro-JapAmerica without the racism/sexism/homophobia, right? So, in that respect, premarital sex being seen as scandalous wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine, eh? Eh?</p><p>...Bear with me, okay?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The room is dark, and the bed isn’t his own. That’s the first thing Rick notes when he wakes up.</p><p>There’s not really a sense of panic or even confusion, though. The sheets are very comfortable and warm. There’s a gentle patter of rain against the shingles overhead. The quiet is almost eerie. Not long ago, the only thing that drowned out the howling wind was the rush of blood in his ears and...</p><p>Rick remembers where he is now.</p><p>The sheets feel so warm because there’s nothing between them and his skin. The scent of late-summer petrichor permeates the air, and somewhere beneath it, the scent of salt and close bodies.</p><p>
  <em> Pete. </em>
</p><p>Rick sits up and blinks away the sand in his eyes. The room is still dark — there’s boards nailed over the window, and his glasses were carelessly abandoned at some point in the night, so that’s to be expected. Beside him, the sheets are pulled back, and there’s an indent in the mattress that’s gone cool.</p><p>It takes another minute of bleary searching before he spots the chair in the corner of the room — was that there before? — and the neatly stacked pile of fabric in the seat, what he assumes to be his glasses sitting on top.</p><p>He slides out from the warmth of the sheets and slips the glasses on, at which point he recognizes the clothes on the chair as his own. Right, Pete had hung them up on the mantel to dry; with how suddenly the typhoon moved in, it was a miracle they’d made it back to his house and weren’t confined to the barn for the storm’s duration.</p><p>Smiling, Pete had offered him a towel and a pair of dry pajamas, and Rick had found himself thinking how very much like a comically ironic soap opera the whole situation was.</p><p>Really, thoughts of his mother should be what presses Rick the most right now. She’d been worried for his safety, just as he’d been worried for Pete’s, so he’d promised he would be back as soon as he was sure Pete’s farm was prepared and tied down. Surely she’s worried sick. And he <em> does </em> think of her, or rather, what he’ll say to her, how he’ll justify having spent the entire storm alone with the man he very much loves but very much isn’t married to.</p><p>Goddess of the Spring, Karen’s gonna have a field day when she finds out. So long as he can give a convincing play-by-play of the entirely innocent activities they did to pass the time before going to sleep at a decent hour in different rooms, his mother will be content, but Karen won’t buy it for a second.</p><p>His thoughts turn away from the future once he’s dressed and out of the room.</p><p>The smell of rain is replaced with the smell of pan-fried eggs and rice, and his stomach grumbles against his will, catching Pete’s attention.</p><p>“D-did I oversleep?” Rick asks, diverting his attention to the grandfather clock by the refrigerator so that he won’t have to look Pete in the eye. (The half-second they locked eyes for was plenty, and now Rick’s heart is in overdrive.) It’s… 5:43, if he’s reading correctly. He normally wakes up at 7, and Pete an hour earlier, or so Pete claims.</p><p>And Pete reaffirms what Rick is thinking almost as quickly as he thinks it. “I figured we could use a good breakfast,” he continues, and only after he stops looking at Rick does Rick have the nerve to look back. “I poked my head out a minute ago. Pretty sure the storm blew every rock in the river right onto my field. Probably some from the mines too. I’ll be lucky to get to sleep by midnight…”</p><p>Rick nods and says something back, some automated response about how the chickens will be too stressed to lay for a few days or something. Pete’s got one of his work shirts on, but his pants are the same plaid flannel he wore the previous evening. It’s not often he sees him in anything but denim.</p><p>Or a hat, for that matter… His hair’s oddly tidy. Did he brush it? Rick didn’t think he <em> owned </em> a hairbrush.</p><p>Pete happily rambles on about nothing in particular as he plates the omelettes he’s prepared and pulls a jug of milk from the fridge, and Rick stands uselessly in place while he sets the small, wooden table at the edge of the living area.</p><p>He’s acting way too casual. It’s unsettling, and Rick’s not sure what to make of it. Maybe it doesn’t feel strange to him? Alternatively, he’s just as unsure, but a lot better at hiding it. The art of hiding problems and insecurities with a smile is an art that Pete has mastered.</p><p>Rick gulps, but it’s not quite enough to rid the lump in his throat.</p><p>Yes, he decides: if this is an act, he’ll play along, at least for now.</p><p>With that, breakfast goes surprisingly well. The omelettes are delicious, the milk is fresh, and when they aren’t eating, they’re losing themselves in conversations about post-storm repairs. Pete offers to help with the poultry farm, since Rick helped him yesterday, but Rick refuses; Sasha and Jeff always help unboard the windows and clear assorted clutter so his mother has less to worry about, and Popuri will personally cuddle each frazzled chicken while Rick cleans the coop and feeds them, and Pete’s farm is so large that he’s got more than enough to worry about as is. (And, though he doesn’t admit it out loud, he’s almost looking forward to the hours of relative solitude. He’ll have plenty of time to think, though about what, he’s not yet sure.)</p><p>Then again, he thinks after the food is gone and the conversation halts, maybe having time to think is dangerous. This act of nonchalance isn’t one he can keep up for long. He offers to help put everything away, and a deeply unsettling silence settles over them as they wash the dishes.</p><p>He swears he feels Pete’s eyes on him, once, then again, but when he looks over both times, Pete’s focused on scrubbing a plate. </p><p>He’s been scrubbing that plate for a while now. It’s spotless. Rick wets his lips and pretends the glass he’s drying is giving him similar trouble.</p><p>The grandfather clock reads 6:35 when they finish. Rick’s mother might have woken up early, anticipating his safe arrival home. Is it appropriate to excuse himself now? Should he stick around and make conversation a bit longer? What else is there to talk about?</p><p>...Do they… do they talk about what happened? Do they talk about it at all? Save it for later, maybe?</p><p>Rick’s palms are clammy. He wipes them on his pants and takes a deep breath.</p><p>“Anyway, I should, um…”</p><p>“Yeah, no, I understand!” Pete says almost immediately, and Rick feels nauseous from how quickly his heart drops into his stomach. Just like that? No… no “Hey, can we talk first” or “I hate for you to leave so soon” or anything like that?</p><p>Maybe… maybe it was… a mistake? Maybe he regrets it? Rick urges himself not to consider such a thought, at least not until breakfast has settled.</p><p>For what it’s worth, Pete sees him to the door, and once more the small-talk resumes.</p><p>“Thank you again,” Pete says, and now <em> he’s </em> the one that won’t look straight ahead, though his smile’s just as bright as ever. “There’s no way I could’a gotten everything tied down in time. Came a lot sooner than it was supposed to, y’know…”</p><p>“Yeah,” Rick confirms, because he was there, too, and Pete’s just rephrasing what they both already know, as if the only thing left to say is something he’d really rather not say at all.</p><p>And then they fall silent again, but they don’t move. It’s pressing against Rick’s teeth, all the words he wants to say, all the questions he wants to ask, but nothing happens. Where does he start? How <em> do </em> they talk about this, if they talk about it at all?</p><p>Maybe it’s best to just pretend it didn’t happen? Keep it an unspoken, shameful secret for the rest of their lives, one they’ll look back on and regret constantly?</p><p>Rick feels nauseous again, so he decides he’ll apologize, either for what happened last night or because he’s about to puke on his boyfriend’s hardwood floors.</p><p>“I—”</p><p>To his shock, they speak at the same time.</p><p>To his even greater shock, Pete’s composure finally slips, just for a second. His eyes snap back to Rick’s face, and they go wide, and his face flushes with color. Then he apologizes and laughs a shaky, unconvincing laugh, his smile so painfully forced that it hardly looks like a smile. It’s more like a grimace, really.</p><p>That’s probably a bad sign, but at least they’re getting somewhere? That’s the only thing Rick has the heart to tell himself. “You first,” he tells Pete in the meantime.</p><p>That forced smile fades, leaving behind some look that Rick’s not sure how to pin, mostly because as soon as he’s sure what it is, another emotion takes its place.</p><p>
  <em> Please talk to me. </em>
</p><p>But come to think of it, are there even words for it? He himself is in a battle between his mind and his body, and what’s surely only a few seconds feels like an eternity. He wants to talk about it, but he wants to flee, but he wants to say “Goodbye, love ya, see ya tomorrow” and leave it at that, but he doesn’t want to go anywhere at all.</p><p>Eventually, Pete breaks the silence.</p><p>“Rick,” he says, half a statement, half a question.</p><p>
  <em> “Rick,” he whispered into the scant space between them, almost reverently, like a prayer. </em>
</p><p>Rick’s not sure if it’s his mind, his body, or both, but he decides he’s going to pull this man close and never, ever let go.</p><p>Pete’s lips are against his before he even gets that chance.</p><p>It ends just as quickly as it begins, and already Rick misses him terribly. So he kisses him right back, and, as though even that’s not enough, Pete wraps his arms around Rick’s neck and pulls him so close they stumble. Pete’s back hits the wall, and it actually sounds kind of painful, but Rick doesn’t care. Pete certainly doesn’t seem to mind. Nothing fully registers but the fingers in his hair and the sighs against his lips, and really, that’s all that matters.</p><p>It feels right, like the first rays of sun after a long winter. </p><p>When they part, it’s far too soon and strictly out of necessity, both breathless and red-faced, and Rick’s glasses are foggy and smudged. Pete lets go of him, just long enough to grab onto fistfuls of his vest; not really meaning to, Rick makes a noise that he’s sure is outright trepidatious. He’s not sure he can take more. Not just yet.</p><p>To his frustration and relief, they don’t close the distance again. But his glasses clear after a moment, and his breath leaves him again. He wonders if there’s a word for it, that wide-eyed, blushing, tender vulnerability he finds himself on the receiving end of... whether there is or not, he likes it, and he especially loves it coming from someone who’s normally so self-assured.</p><p>“I…” In the one syllable, Pete’s voice cracks, so he clears his throat before continuing. “I kinda wish this didn’t have to end.”</p><p><em> It doesn’t, </em> Rick wants to say, and he wishes more than anything to be back in Pete’s bed, whether they make love again or just quietly exist together, the rain lulling them into a comfortable sleep.</p><p>“Me too,” he says instead, because there’s a world outside these walls, and they’ve already pushed their luck as far as they can for now.</p><p>Still, Pete seems content with the answer; he lets go of Rick’s vest and straightens it back out with a quick apology. Rick thanks him just as quickly and takes a step back so Pete can get himself in order too.</p><p>Short though their moment was, Pete’s hair is properly messed up now, his work shirt wrinkled, his eyes shining like polished mahogany. He looks more like… well, more like Pete.</p><p>Rick’s heart is back in its proper place, fluttering and full to bursting.</p><p>“Anyway.” Pete runs a hand through his hair, and Rick finds himself mimicking the movement. “See you tomorrow?”</p><p>“Yeah! Let’s, uh, let’s meet up with Karen and get drinks.”</p><p>“Sounds great!” Pete stands to his toes to give Rick another kiss, short and sweet, and they bid one another farewell and good luck with the aftermath of the typhoon.</p><p>It’s still raining when the door closes behind Rick, cool and refreshing. He walks home unbothered by the rain, jaw aching from a smile that won’t leave his face.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Y'all pray for my girlfriend, she's received the brunt of my Pete/Rick love/headcanons over the past several months, and with the FoMT remake hitting the US in July it's unlikely to stop any time soon. Why are my OTPs always the ones that no one else ships? orz</p><p>(Also, Rick is a Tol Boi and you can't convince me otherwise.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>